I have a love/hate relationship with cell phones. They can be useful, yes, when your car breaks down on the highway and you need a tow truck, or the zombie apocalypse begins and you need to notify the authorities as quickly as possible. But really, how much do you need a phone to do, other than make the appropriate calls?
Technology is amazing, it’s true. The advancements in the past 50 years are absolutely staggering when you think about it. People are connected in ways that were never possible before. But in the same ways we are connected, we are also distanced and separated. You can call anyone you want, anywhere you want, anytime you want with your cell phone. You can send text messages and go online to communicate as well. But what about the people who are right in front of you, the people in the same room with you, the people you share your life with on a daily basis? When was the last time you went out with someone who gave you their full attention, who didn’t spend the evening answering calls and texts and updating their status on The ‘Book? When was the last time you saw a movie in the theatre without some asshole texting the whole time? Our society has become so dependent on this “social networking” that we neglect the social situations we’re in. A classic example is that of one of my childhood heroes, Bill Nye the Science Guy, who collapsed during a lecture. The attending students all whipped out their phones and began texting, tweeting, twitting, twatting and updating their statuses, rather than helping him or at least checking to see if he was okay.
I miss the days when people were smart and phones were attached to the wall in your kitchen. Okay, maybe people were never really that smart, but at least their stupidity was relatively contained, instead of posted online for all to see, at any time of day. At some point, a cell phone became something you needed, and then you needed a camera phone, and then a phone with internet capability and a full keyboard. But do we really need any of this crap? The only people I really need to talk to that badly are people that I actually see on a regular basis, and even then I don’t really like to talk to most of them anyway. Maybe I’m just antisocial, but I’d rather be antisocial than just another douche canoe with a bluetooth earpiece glued to my head and an unsmart phone glued to my hand.
Maybe that’s just me.